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We heard from a Dutch girl in the Silk Road Hotel in Yazd that it was possible to wild camp in the Desert near Kerman in an area called the Kaluts. What I had read online and in the guidebook indicated that wild camping in Iran can draw unwanted attention from the authorities. While this had meant we had not camped in Iran we were keen to try the experience.

Since the distance from Kerman was not far we had a leisurely drive into the Desert, stopping along the way for some lunch and lying around chatting. We arrived to the official campsite to (thankfully) find it empty. This meant we could squeeze through a gap in the wall and continue riding out past it into the desert. The sand was hard compacted and easy to ride on so we continued on for a bit to find a secluded spot where we would be less likely to be disturbed.

When we switched off the engines I was immediately struck by how silent it was. It was a stark contrast from Kerman the night before. Nothing was living out here except us (and somehow a few flies). I watched a tranquil sunset over the sand dunes before we setup camp and Els made us a fantastic curry. Without a further word she then disappeared to return with some wood and had a campfire going before we knew it. It was great to see how wild camping is done from people with a little more experience than us.

Again we swapped stories for a while and stared at the stars. We played with google skymap on my phone to identify them too, but I wondered if knowing their names really added anything to the experience. I noticed a trend forming in Els and Merijn‘s disaster stories where they always seemed to start with “this one time when I was camping“. It became a running joke but I began to wonder how the desert camping would turn out.

In the morning everything was fine. No wild animals or authorities came to get us in the night and the bikes were still there. We decamped, fired them up and headed off into the sunrise.

Kerman was the next stop on what is now a traditional overland route to India along the silk road. It was also our first time in convoy with Els, Merijn and Thierrie which would have been interesting viewing for a budding psychologist. The group dynamics began to show but were no real issue as we were fairly chilled out and knew what to expect. Thierrie was focussed on getting to the destination and obviously doing mental calculations about average speed. Helen was worried about travelling in a group Els had a phobia about the crosswinds and Merijn was generally relaxed and unfazed.

We were also joined by Roderick and Merlyn who were travelling to India in a converted ex military Mercedes van. Any fears about them being slower than us were unfounded since they did not need to stop as often as the biking group. It was also fantastic to stop in a lay-by to eat some scrambled eggs and have tea. I wondered if perhaps a camper van would be a good way to travel before telling myself to wise up. 🙂

Since it took us a while to leave Yazd, we arrived in Kerman in the dark, just in time for rush hour. The Iranian traffic is chaotic at best but even more so at night though it really should be experienced to be believed. The basic rule seems to be that anything which is in front of you has right of way. Stuff that is behind you no longer matters and you‘d better get used to having no personal space. It also helps a lot to have a very loud horn. After a while of driving in Iran I was beginning to get used to it and even beginning to enjoy it. In any case with the campervan up front leading the way I was just thankful to let someone else do the navigation.

So we rocked up to the recommended Omid Inn only to find it closed for renovations. Luckily the owner was at the site and directed us to the new one which used to be a house. Again i was lazy and took a back seat as we negotiated the traffic for a second time with the van leading the way. When we arrived, the campervan nearly demolished some scaffolding outside because it was about 2 inches too tall and a traffic policeman stood by uselessly looking gormless. Eventually we got settled and the others had negotiated a good rate on the hotel.

The guidebook recommended a nearby hotel to eat a buffet dinner. As usual the price in the book was a lot lower than reality but we stayed nonetheless and had a great feed served up by a waiter who made us all laugh by describing everything he served as ‘berry berry good‘. I began to like the change of pace by riding in a group and enjoyed swapping interesting stories and experiences with the others.

On the road to Yazd we passed a police checkpoint. Helen later told me the police had signalled me to stop though I had not seen them so she went through too. We hoped we would not hear about it as we go to cross the border out of Iran. the rest of the road was very peaceful with long straight parts allowing my mind to finally wander. I had dire straits ‘telegraph road’ as my imaginary background track.

The next morning we went for a walk around Yazd but got lost and did not seem to find much to look at except the impressive mosque. Perhaps we could not appreciate it by this stage since we had seen several impressive mosques by now. However the dome was particularly beautiful lit up at night.

Merjin, Els and Thierrie arrived later that night and we discussed going through Pakistan together which seemed like a good idea with the current security situation there. I guess experience can only be gathered first hand but reports coming from other travellers seemed positive.

The next couple of days were spent fairly easy, doing some maintenance to the bikes in prep for the journey across Pakistan. Els and Merijn changed oil though I was unable to find anything suitable so decided to wait rather than compromise.

Having taken a while to pack the bikes and taken a video of Helen in the Esfahan traffic we were only getting out at about 11.

A nice little man outside the hotel in Esfahan wanted us to take his photo but strangely never asked to see it. Seemingly happy enough to be recorded in a picture somewhere in the world he smiled and waved as he headed off again.

As we travelled, a guy at petrol station showed us some pics of his brothers wedding on a laptop. He offered to let us stay at his house but we pressed on. We regretted this later, he seemed like a nice guy and pictures of his house looked great. In the end we didn’t get much further anyway and we really should have accepted the invitation.

The lonely planet had 2 hotels in Naein but the cheap one was closed with no answer to the bell. The expensive one was nice with split level rooms but 50usd a night that we could not really afford. The bikes parked in courtyard though steep step was interesting to negotiate. Not wanting to press 200 miles into the desert on unknown road we opted to stay anyway.

at the local internet cafe i was intrigued to see the machines had autocad installed along with isis electronic design software. i wondered what the demand for it was although there does seem to be a lot of interest in it here. Perhaps its another useful skill people want to develop in search of a better life or something. Either way all the software seems to be unpaid copies since law enforcement on it is pretty much nil.

The next morning the hotel porter took glee in pointing to a water leak on my bike. It seemed to be from the pump but was small so we pressed on into the middle of the desert anyway, buttocks clenched all the way.

The desert was simple enough to ride with good road. We stopped for fuel when my tank was at 200 miles and lorry driver filled the tank and would not take any money. I have given up trying to work out fuel consumption in Iran because I never find out how many litres I have used here. the fuel smells different here and had a dark yellow colour. at a guess it is high sulphur and not messed around with by adding chemicals like at home. either way the bike seemed to run very well on it, perhaps smoother and more powerful than before.

We arrived to ateshooni in garmeh ok after asking people in village for directions. It was a nice traditional place big group just leaving so we had it almost to ourselves. The extended family arrived round and we sat and ate traditional food while one recited poetry. It felt a lot more authentic than most of the tourist things we had seen so far. one of the sons impressed us by playing clay vases (no really). It was impressive how many sounds he got out of them. It would have been even better had the German ganche with zero rhythm not decided to join in.

The next day we opted to ride the bikes out to the salt lake which was a little disappointing since it was patchy and small but we still had fun taking some photos at sunset. We also filmed the bikes doing flyby‘s at about 60 mph. We set up to do another higher speed one but then noticed the police car (who had taken an interest as they passed us) turning round up the road. I did not fancy explaining what we were doing out there so we split.

In the morning I looked at the bike again and disconnected the fuel pump so I could listen to the water pump. unfortunately I failed to reconnect it after and wondered why the bike would not start. After I realised then it would still not start and I began to worry. after running through the possibilities I diagnosed the battery was too low from all the starting to fire it. a set of jump-leads was produced and thankfully she fired up. I was reluctant to switch it off again for about 100 miles though.

It was cold and raining on way to Esfahan. We stopped at an unfinished petrol station after 60 miles to eat bananas we were given by a man and his son through a moving car window. The watchman/workman made us tea and gave some bread. He offered to let us sleep on the carpeted floor but we pressed on because it was barely lunchtime and would not have had much to do there otherwise.

We found the Amir Kabir hotel no problem due to having coordinates for the satnav this time. A random guy stopped on his bike to show us videos on his phone including an overlander on a bmw f650. This hotel was run by welcoming people with bikes parking 300m away in guarded parking. The hotel was fairly cheap without the breakfast, but we soon discovered breakfast was hard to find outside (unless you like burgers first thing in the morning)

We finally met Merjin and Els (www.2fortheroad.nl) who had stayed at David and Juliets in Kas a fortnight before us. They had hooked up with Thierry from Switzerland. They saw our bikes and parking guard told them Helen was the “little one“! Tierrie‘s life dream was to travel world by bike and not need to work again afterwards. So he set about it 20 years ago setting up a business and was doing well now.

They had same insurance hassle at border we did and paid another different price. It was nice to know we were not just paranoid about it but annoying that it was the first introduction to a fantastic country.

We went to see the impressive Imam Square, second only to Tienanmen square in size. Due to sanctions it is difficult to get money in Iran and credit cards don’t work. we were running a bit low but managed to get some more money from a carpet dealer with an account in Dubai but paid about 20% commission. At the end of the square was the Imam mosque which featured a massive dome. If you stamped your foot in the centre under the dome there was an almost perfect echo.

Then we went to the seh o seh bridge for a few photos. Interestingly this seemed to be where the younger Iranians hung out, cruising back and forth hoping to catch the eye of someone of the opposite sex. A few hung around on 125‘s wearing jeans and leather jackets with hair slicked back like the Fonz.

The following day the others left for Shiraz and we stayed for another night. Again we went to the seh o seh bridge but this time sat to have tea and popcorn in the little tea-house outside.

We walked to Armenian quarter to find the (Christian) church closed early on Friday. We walked back to the bridge again to have pizza in the park with all the picnicking Iranians. a couple of young women chatted to us, it turned out they were studying biochemistry at university. they were aware of a lack of opportunities for this in Iran and i wondered what the future held for them. it seems women get well educated here but it does not turn into employment after marriage if the statistics are anything to go by.

We decided to head into the desert to stay in Garmeh as recommended by some other travellers in the morning…

It was uncharacteristically cold and raining on the way. We randomly stopped at an oto-lastic* guy simply looking for a toilet for Helen to put her fleece on (lest the locals be taken aback by the sight of a woman wearing a t-shirt). What we did not expect was to be taken in for tea and biscuits along with home grown pistachios. An electric heater was dragged out and put in front of us and they offered for us to stay. We reluctantly left thinking we would get to Esfahan that day although it seemed ‘the journey‘ had other ideas.

On the way into Saveh I saw that Helens pump was now leaking oil as well as water. Not good, not good at all. We pulled into the first garage we saw. The guys spoke only Farsi but before long had set to work. It seemed to be Volvo lorry mechanic going by clutches and head gaskets hanging on the walls but the guys had bikes themselves including a 2 stroke Kawasaki dirt bike. They all laughed and nodded knowingly when I pointed to it and then made gestures and sounds for wheelies.

It actually reminded me a lot of the garage that friends Des and Kyle used to keep in Greenisland. Iranian Ryan was working skilfully at the bike while Iranian Kyle undid one bolt and then promptly lost it. Iranian Neil looked on enthusiastically and Iranian Rik breezed in to stop everyone with some chat for a while before leaving again. Iranian Des was nowhere to be seen since a bike was involved. Just like home.

There was a problem with the oil return pipe being in the way but they got cover off ok. I installed the spare pump we had with us and was pleased to note the guys putting some oil on the shaft before we put it through the seals. At this point they insisted on taking the gasket off to grease it and I could not explain to them I wanted it left there. It split while they were cleaning it and I instantly went into despair. I had visions of being there for weeks and having to fork out for import duty etc but the lads seemed rather unconcerned. They were more interested in lunch and staying out of the rain.

After lunch they took 3usd and syphoned some petrol from Helens bike and disappeared with the broken gasket in one hand (riding the bike with the other hand).
Meanwhile the youngest guy fiddled with an interesting waste oil heater for a while. It had a double loop design which preheated the oil before it came to a jet where it burned. Unfortunately it took a lot of effort to get it working properly and at one point flared up nearly setting the place on fire. After it was going for a while it went out instantly filling the garage with smoke. We got out sharpish since I wondered if the gas would be flammable and now in a nice fuel/air mix as the guy tried to relight it.

The main guy returned with a smug smile on his face and threw a perfect new gasket into my lap. It had obviously been machine cut someplace. I suppose I should have expected as much in a country used dealing with sanctions. The bike was quickly reassembled and lots of photos were taken for everyone.

They led us to a hotel with underground parking where we stayed for 2 nights since it was only 30usd a night. It was painful to get money changed there – we tried about 6 banks and used a watchmaker in the end. I was getting some strange looks because I walked around in the hotel indoor shoes.

My bike grounded on the way into carpark but Helens grounded on way out in a big way. It made a tremendous bang and stopped dead, rolling back down the hill. I was filled with fear as we had a look at the damage but the only problem was a hook broken off the sidestand where the spring connects. On the way out my bike lost some clutch material but at least did not ground.

On to Esfahan baby!

*oto-lastic = Roadside tyre repair shop

When we arrived at the outskirts of Quazvin we asked for directions at a petrol station. A local woman in taxi got her driver to lead the way to a hotel. Unfortunately it turned out that hotel marmut was most expensive one in the town at 80usd a night. Perhaps she felt sorry for Helen having to come all this way on a bike and thought she deserved it. Either way we could not afford it but at least we had the guidebook now so we could look up others.

On the way in we were found by a local on a generic 125 who proclaimed “i love you“. The only hotel with parking was Hotel Iran. We tried another place which was cheaper but had no parking. With the experience of street parking in Zanjan and Helen hot and bothered with the walking we agreed to stay.

We met Tim and Pete who were cycling overland on the silk road. We had proper respect for these guys doing this on a bicycle. Any complaints about riding a motorbike seem pathetic in comparison.

We went out for dinner together and while wandering aimlessly we were discovered by hoard of student girls. Tim and Pete were overwhelmed by the attention which I was spared (due to being married and moreover having Helen clinging strongly to my arm and baring teeth). A few hearts were broken when they explained they were already spoken for. I guess landing a foreign husband is one way out of Iran to what they might perceive as a better life. I wondered if any of the women who do marry a foreigner and leave are happy afterwards.

The story from the guidebook of the German tourist who was sentenced to death for having ‘relations‘ with an unmarried Muslim woman would do little to allay the fears of most men considering meeting an Iranian woman. These girls were just the same as women of their age anywhere, one (seemingly the pack leader) waving her mobile about while talking in proper diva fashion. It did make us uncomfortably wonder about who might be watching and taking notes though.

Nonetheless they took us to a great Turkish eatery and we had kebaps at (there‘s one everywhere isn‘t there?).

We left for Esfahan in the morning, not knowing at the time that we were destined not make it…

The owner of the hotel spoke little English but with the help of a phrase book I managed to explain we needed a garage for Helen‘s bike to fix the water pump. I was trying to ask for a space to work but I think the closest we got was to organise the mechanic to call out.

When he came I was a little confused because the guy had clean hands and clothes which is not typical of any mechanic I‘ve ever met. Some younger people passing in the street were accosted by the hotel guy who could do a little translation for us. I explained that I just needed somewhere to work. What I got was a dusty carpark. It got pretty frustrating with the carpark owner and all the people parking their cars coming over to leer or ask the usual “where you from“ questions. I gave up after cleaning the water pump cover and just topped up the water instead. I was less than happy about the prospect of continuing with the dodgy pump but didn’t like the thought of stripping it there and getting grit etc into it.

To add further stress a guy came and told us we needed to move the bikes because the police would give us a ticket otherwise. He showed us an underground car park where we could leave them but we were not happy with them being quite a distance away. I was tempted to leave them there because any ticket we got would go unpaid anyway but the thought that perhaps the bikes would be impounded didn’t appeal to us.

The only option was to move to Hotel Sepia up the road with underground parking (but more than twice as expensive). We both got frustrated with zombie onlookers while packing and one of them set off the alarm. This made me snap and I shouted at them to the effect “go away“ (only less polite). There was no reaction from them to rise to it and I felt bad about it later. Here we were as total strangers so it was natural to be a curiosity and we had been treated with kindness since we came into Iran and shouting was my reaction.

In the move Helen managed to lose her phone. We went back and searched first hotel before eventually finding it in Helens bag. We went back to the first hotel again to explain and had tea and chatted for a while which made me feel a little better.

In the morning we left for Qazvin.

The road to Zanjan was more of the same fast and smooth tarmac that we had seen in Iran so far. The scenery was breathtaking with smooth hills that looked like crinkled tissue paper, sandy red colours and even some with a hint of darker stripes running through.

Helen was able to get petrol coming out of Tabriz ok but the station had no diesel until 1pm so we headed on. We then went onto a toll motorway (where we were waved on with no charge). I was not entirely sure if motorbikes are allowed on the motorways because we had seen only one other bike on there but we passed several speed traps without being pulled in.

The bike clicked over 350 miles since it was last filled (in Turkey). I was beginning to get concerned if we would find fuel on this road as we‘d passed nothing in a long time. We came to signs for a fuel stop in 2km as the bike clicked over 380 miles. The light would come on any minute and I was not sure how much that would mean was left. I wondered before what sort of diesel is available in Iran but now was getting increasingly desperate.

We pulled into the fuel stop which was simply petrol being dispensed from a trailer off a tanker lorry which had been installed there for some time. The bike now had 405 miles on and I could no longer see the fuel in the bottom of the tank. The light was still not on but it could not be long now. It was the longest I‘d been on the bike without the light on, presumably because of our slow progress in Turkey meaning better fuel economy.

Now desperate I asked a bystander if there was any ‘Gazhol‘ at the pump. The answer was of course no, but what I did not expect was the guy to then point to his tractor and indicate he was going to give me some of his fuel. Some hurried talking happened between a few other bystanders and an empty zam zam water bottle appeared. I gave the man the hose I still had from emptying the tank in Bergama. Without any fuss I had made several refills of the 1.5 litre bottle and transferred it to the bike. Each time I indicated it was enough he indicated to keep going. After about 6 trips I closed the fuel cap and he still wanted me to fill the bottle to keep spare on the bike.

Job done he washed his hands and refused point blank to accept any money. All I could do was give him one of the little cards with the address of this site on that I have been giving out randomly.

As we went on our way I reflected at how amazing this all was. It made me feel emotional how a complete stranger had gone out of his way to help me and wondered what the response would have been for him in my country.

About 80 miles later we came to a station with diesel. It took a little convincing to get diesel instead of petrol but a crowd of truckers soon formed and pushed buttons for hazard lights, examined the helmet and so on. All friendly but I could have done without the one who pushed the starter with the bike already running. His mates told him off and the bike started up ok again after so it was ok in the end.

We arrived in Zanjan to be greeted by an impromptu hotch potch motorcycle escort. They weaved in amongst us, waving and trying to shake Helens hand. We entered the town and they avoided the one way system by going through the gap between the bollards. “When in Rome“ we thought as we followed suit. In contrast to Tabriz we got to the main square with no drama at all until we stopped and got mobbed by curious and friendly questions “where you from“, “what is your name“. Another friendly local who called himself Freddy led us to a hotel after the one we were aiming for was closed. He‘d been in LA for 5 years and hence spoke English with all the slang so was very easy to get along with.

It appears that the way to get sorted in Iran is to simply turn up somewhere and look confused. Instantly people start tripping over each other to work out what the issue is and try to help.